The next presidential election in Armenia ended. At exactly 20 hours of local time (19:00 Moscow time), all 1865 polling stations in Yerevan and in all 10 regions of the republic closed. The counting of votes begins. According to preliminary data from the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Armenia, about 53% of voters took part in the presidential election.

On the night of 40 Israeli tanks, with the support of military helicopters, they entered the city of Gaza. Another group of Israeli military vehicles blocked the main transport highway of the gas sector. The Israeli Air Force helicopters opened fire from machine guns for city buildings. Palestinian militants occupy positions on the streets. Information about the victims has not yet been received, ITAR-TASS reports.

At the initiative of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of irrigated vegetable growing and gynchoe breeding in the Astrakhan region, an active popularization of watermelon began. In August last year, the first Russian watermelon festival was held in Astrakhan, in which melons from the Astrakhan region, Kalmykia, the Krasnodar Territory and other regions participated. It is assumed that such festivals will be held annually.

On Wednesday at about 11:30, an explosion occurred in the Rostov-on-Don clinic, as a result of which one person died and one was injured. The explosion occurred in the sanitary and bacteriological laboratory of the clinic of the North Caucasus Railway. As a result of the explosion, the doctor of the clinical microbiology of Klimenko 26 years old died, the 68-year-old patient of the hospital was injured.

The US Department of Defense ordered another 28 thousand troops to send the Gulf of Persian. The United States is going to concentrate a military group of 200 thousand people in the region by the beginning of the war with Iraq, reports Reuters. 5 thousand 200 military personnel from the 3rd mechanized cavalry regiment of the US Army, based in Fort Karson in Colorado, will be sent to the region as part of a new replenishment in the coming days.

Türkiye and the USA on Wednesday again failed to agree on the amount of economic assistance that the Americans will provide Turkey to compensate for possible damage from the military operation in Iraq. If the Americans manage to agree with Ankara, the Turkish parliament authorizes the placement of several tens of thousands of American military personnel in the country.

Specialists of the capital's metro are ready to assist Korean colleagues in eliminating the consequences of a fire that occurred the day before in one of the subway cars in the city of TEGU. According to ITAR-TASS, the Moscow metro is included in the consortium of the subway world, uniting underground highways of the largest cities of the planet.

The US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Paskual handed over to the note to the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchme and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Anatoly Zlenko. “In the note, we asked the possibility of sending a Ukrainian battalion to the territory to Iraq,” Paskual said today at a press conference in Kyiv.

The secret of the mysterious smile of the famous Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci is revealed. Professor Margaret Livingston from Harvard University at the annual meeting of the American Association for Progress in Science, which took place in Denver (Colorado), presented her theory of explanation of this phenomenon. In her opinion, the effect of a flickering smile is associated with the characteristics of human vision.

Representatives of Norway took the first three places in the race for 30 kilometers with a common start at the World Sports Championship, which these days are held in the Italian city of Val Di-Fimm. The first to finish was Thomas Olsgord, who showed time 1: 12: 29.3 seconds. Less than a second, Olsgord lost his compatriot Anders Eukland.

The British troops deployed in Kuwait found that they would have to be not only the fighting partners of the Americans. They will also have to use their toilet paper. According to The Times (translation on the website inopressa.ru ), the thing is that the British Ministry of Defense did not manage to update the supplies of provisions and the first necessity of the Royal Marine Corps, which is now undergoing exercises in the Kuwaiti desert.

In the south-east of Iran, next to the Pakistani border, a military aircraft with 302 soldiers on board crashed. This was reported by Iranian state television. According to preliminary data, all people who were on board the aircraft died. It was originally reported that the crashed plane was a passenger. The Russian -made aircraft Il performed the internal flight of Zaedan - Kerman (500 miles southeast of Tehran), when the air traffic controllers lost contact with him.

In the South African port of Cape Town, Russian sailors from the Argun tanker decided to start a hunger strike. They achieve repayment of debts on wages and returning to their homeland. As the sailors were told in the Far Eastern Department of the Russian Trade Union, the Argun tanker is assigned to the port of Vladivostok and 23 sailors - residents of Primorye on board, ITAR -TASS reports.

A resident of the Blagoveshchensk of the Amur Region set a peculiar record, having visited the city medical detachment 70 times in 25 years. The citizen of Evsyukova was first taken to this institution at the age of 25, and now she is 50 years old, Yuri Zharkov, head of the Blagoveshchensk, said on Wednesday. He noted that last year, 4 thousand 233 people visited the institution, in 2001, 4 thousand 60, Interfax reports - 372 pensioners, 455 homeless people and citizens of China and the DPRK.

The prostitute for prostitution was closed on Tuesday by metropolitan police at the Izmailovo Hotel . According to the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, the brothel contained a 36-year-old non-working citizen. As the investigation found out, the stash was organized in the sauna on the 30th floor of the Corps "D" a year ago. The trial is underway, reports 'MK-News' .